A tour of New York’s specialty bookstores includes Idlewild, where the reporter “found a spirited Spanish class being conducted in the front window area overlooking the street…. As the group chatted energetically, I browsed the excellent selection of travel guides, global literature and children’s books in English, French and Spanish.”

Idlewild’s language classes are included in NY Mag’s “Best of New York” issue. The annual roundup cites our “chatty and conversational” classes taught in a “sunny storefront” by “gregarious native speakers” and concludes that “if you need to hold your own at a party in Paris, Idlewild takes the gâteau.”

Idlewild’s new Brooklyn satellite makes the list of the FT’s five “favourite foreign-language bookshops” in the world. The new branch is “in Cobble Hill, known for its burgeoning population of novelists and French families. The shop is filled with novels in Spanish, French and Italian, with a wall of children’s books.”

The magazine welcomes the opening of Idlewild’s second store, in Brooklyn: “In addition to more than 5,000 foreign-language novels, comics, and children’s books, the next-door storefront offers language classes.”

Patricia Marx writes that “Idlewild Books, a shop specializing in travel and international literature, is a treat, even if the only expedition you plan to take is up the stairs to this mezzanine-level shop.” The feature article about graduation gifts goes on to say, “a nifty gift for anyone going on a pre-adulthood trip is a ‘destination kit’ – a selection of fiction, nonfiction, and guidebooks tailored to the recipient’s interests, reading preferences, and travel style.”

In a Book Bench profile, Vicky Raab writes that “Idlewild could be considered the Murray’s Cheese of bookstores. Catering to the taste of literary travellers, books are organized by country, with guidebooks, nonfiction, and fiction served together, the way they should be, like cheese and crackers.” She goes on to describe the store’s whimsical book recommendations and customized gift packs, and concludes by raving about our “frequent book parties that pair readings with appropriate alcoholic beverages and cultural stimulants.”

A profile in the Sunday Travel section describes the store, where “in a cozy mezzanine-level space, the classic travel texts of guidebooks, maps and phrasebooks are grouped with literary fiction, memoirs and spy thrillers – books that, at first glance, might not be what the average traveler would think about packing in her suitcase. But as you thumb your way through the shelves, a certain logic begins to emerge. In the India section, “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth shares space with “A Passage to India” by E.M. Forster, “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, and “The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra.”

Idlewild is named a “Critics’ Pick” in the magazine’s online shopping directory. Lauren Murrow describes the space (a “spacious second-floor shop in the elegant former parlor floor of an elegant 1880s-era home”), furnishings (“the chairs are salvaged from the old American Airlines international terminal, as is the slab of stained glass behind the register”), and selection, and explains the store’s name (“the pre-1963 moniker of JFK Airport.”)